CertHead

CompTIA A+ Core 2 (220-1102) practice questions

816 exam-style questions across all 4 official exam domains, with full answer explanations. Try the samples below, then drill any domain.

Practice by domain

Sample questions

Question 1 · Difficulty 3/5

A sales engineer is presenting Windows 10 edition options to a client whose workstations will be used by non-technical home users in a workgroup environment, requiring the simplest possible user experience and no enterprise management features. Which Windows 10 edition best fits this requirement and is sold through retail consumer channels? (Select the best answer.)
  1. Windows 10 Home
  2. Windows 10 Pro
  3. Windows 10 Enterprise
  4. Windows 10 Pro for Workstations
Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: A

Windows 10 Home
Windows 10 Home is the edition designed for consumer retail, providing a simplified user experience without enterprise management features such as BitLocker, gpedit.msc, or domain join, and is the standard choice for workgroup-based home and small-office use. Windows 10 Pro includes enterprise-oriented features such as BitLocker and domain join, adding unnecessary complexity and cost for this scenario. Windows 10 Enterprise is not sold through retail consumer channels and requires volume licensing agreements. Windows 10 Pro for Workstations targets high-performance computing scenarios and is also not a standard retail consumer product, making it unsuitable for this use case.

Question 2 · Difficulty 3/5

A network technician is working late in an unlocked wiring closet. A passing employee notices that a laptop resting on the patch panel shelf is unattended and unanchored. Which physical security control is specifically designed to protect portable equipment like that laptop from being easily removed from a fixed location? (Select the best answer.)
  1. Door lock on the wiring closet
  2. Equipment lock (cable lock)
  3. Alarm system with door contact sensors
  4. Motion sensor inside the closet
Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: B

Equipment lock (cable lock)
An equipment lock, commonly called a cable lock or Kensington lock, physically tethers a portable device such as a laptop to a fixed anchor point, directly preventing opportunistic removal. A door lock secures the room perimeter but does not protect devices once a person is already inside the room or when the door is propped open during work. An alarm system with door contact sensors detects when a door is opened but does not physically restrain the device. A motion sensor detects movement in the space and can trigger an alert but provides no physical restraint against theft.

Question 3 · Difficulty 3/5

A technician notices that a Windows 10 workstation consistently shows the wrong time in the system tray, losing several minutes each day even after the time is manually corrected. The computer is not joined to a domain. Which Windows symptom does this most directly indicate? (Select the best answer.)
  1. System instability
  2. Time drift
  3. Slow profile load
  4. Services not starting
Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: B

Time drift
Persistent and progressive loss of accurate time that reoccurs after manual correction is the defining characteristic of time drift, which is commonly caused by a failing CMOS battery on the motherboard. System instability describes random crashes or unpredictable OS behavior and is not related to timekeeping. Slow profile load refers to a delay specifically during user login while the profile is being applied. Services not starting would manifest as features or applications failing to function because a dependent background service did not initialize, not as a clock discrepancy.

Question 4 · Difficulty 2/5

Which document defines the rules governing how employees may use company-owned computers, internet access, email, and other IT resources, and typically requires a signature before a new employee is granted network access? (Select the best answer.)
  1. Acceptable use policy
  2. Standard operating procedure
  3. New-user setup checklist
  4. Incident report
Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: A

Acceptable use policy
An acceptable use policy (AUP) defines the permitted and prohibited uses of company IT resources and is signed by employees to acknowledge those rules before access is granted. A standard operating procedure documents the steps to perform a specific task, not the rules of acceptable behavior for resource use. A new-user setup checklist is a task-tracking tool used by technicians to complete onboarding steps, such as creating accounts and configuring hardware. An incident report documents a specific security or operational event after it occurs and is not a behavioral-rules agreement signed at onboarding.

Question 5 · Difficulty 3/5

A technician is replacing the primary drive on a Windows 10 Pro laptop that was previously joined to a corporate Active Directory domain. The new drive is blank. The technician performs a clean install of Windows 10 Pro using the corporate media. Which statement correctly describes the outcome compared to an in-place upgrade from a working Pro installation? (Select the best answer.)
  1. A clean install preserves domain membership and all user profile data because the product key is tied to the hardware
  2. A clean install removes all previous applications, user profiles, and domain membership; the machine must be re-joined to the domain after installation
  3. A clean install on the same hardware automatically re-joins the domain using cached credentials stored in the UEFI firmware
  4. A clean install keeps installed applications but removes domain membership only
Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: B

A clean install removes all previous applications, user profiles, and domain membership; the machine must be re-joined to the domain after installation
A clean install writes a fresh copy of Windows to the target drive and removes all previous data, including installed applications, user profiles, and domain membership records; the machine must be manually re-joined to Active Directory afterward. A product key is associated with a Microsoft account or volume license agreement, not with hardware, and it does not restore any prior configuration. UEFI firmware does not cache domain credentials; domain membership is stored in the Windows registry and Security Accounts Manager, both of which are erased by a clean install. A clean install always starts from a baseline OS state; it cannot selectively preserve applications while removing domain configuration.

Ready to test yourself for real?

The free quiz pulls live questions from the same banks — no account required.

Start the free quiz